Day: March 12, 2024

SOL 16: Sometimes you need to know how to start again…

“Actually, it wasn’t that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul of the World.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

The morning was very busy for the Crew! We performed various cognitive assessments, in different modules, for the Orbital Architecture experiment. The aim is to study our performances in different places of the station. For this experiment, we are also wearing different sensors. For example, one of them indicates our location thanks to anchors that Lise placed everywhere in the station at the beginning of the mission. We need to turn them on in the morning and save data at the end of the day. We also have a Polar Band, placed around our chests, with a cardiac sensor. We wear it during the day, and Crew members that aren’t bothered by it keep wearing it during the night. All data will be collected by a researcher coming from KTH University leading the experiment. Finally, we also wear smart watches. They collect a large amount of data, especially about our sleep. At first, it was a bit tricky to get used to all these devices. After 16 Sols, we don’t feel them anymore. All these sensors are not that stringent for us, especially because we know that the scientific data will be used for interesting research!

Léa, our Crew astronomer, received this morning the pictures she took during the night thanks to the robotic Observatory. It is the first time since the beginning of the mission that she’s satisfied with her pictures. It is not that easy to do astrophotography! She processed data and obtained a beautiful picture of the M-42 nebula! Now that she understands better how it works, she’s hoping for other pictures to show us!

Today, we had a setback for our photogrammetry experiment. Let’s resume the events. We performed the experiment at North Ridge last week, to compare the performances of two teams: one with a 3D map generated thanks to the drone’s pictures, the other with a classic 2D map. The photogrammetry at North Ridge was a success, and we wanted to do it again this week in a second site called Candor Chasma. Thus, Yves, Mathurin and Leo went there to take drone’s pictures yesterday. They thought that the more they take photos, the more precise the 3D map will be. It is why they took 1400 pictures yesterday, versus 650 pictures last week. Even though they were happy about their photogrammetry, they were worried about the fact that the map could be more complicated to generate. How to explain? In the middle of the scarlet desert, stands North Ridge, chiselled by the wind, draped in the usual Martian red but also yellow, green, and white. Although massive in size, North Ridge is not as intimidating as mountains on Earth can be. By its gentle slopes and round shapes, North Ridge is an invitation to climb, guided by the colour gradients of its flanks. Filled with cracks and canyons, with a good visibility everywhere, it was the perfect place for photogrammetry. Candor Chasma, on the other hand, is a scar fracturing the ground. As deep as North Ridge is high, the canyon surrounds you with its sinuous walls, pierced from all sides, like a river joined by its affluents. Angles and sharp turns make for a reduced visibility, making it not a perfect place for photogrammetry. And after 11 hours of the computer processing pictures, the software gave us a map that was not satisfying us… Some points were not located at the right place, which distorted the map. Yves and Mathurin immediately thought of starting again the process by going back to Candor Chasma and tried to organize an EVA for this afternoon! This would have enabled us to not completely change our EVA planning, but this demand wasn’t accepted by Mission Support. We rescheduled the future EVA so Leo, Yves and Mathurin could go to Candor Chasma with the drone tomorrow. It was the first time that rescheduling had a direct impact on the end of our mission, which made us realize that we’ll have to leave the station in a few days… Yves and Mathurin then spent their afternoon trying to understand how to improve their photogrammetry for tomorrow, so they won’t encounter the same problems anymore. Indeed, it is a complex subject and nobody in the Crew is an expert on it. They read documentation and made some hypotheses about the map’s errors. They have developed a new strategy thanks to these conclusions. Tomorrow, Mathurin will pilot the drone. Yves and Leo will follow the drone and guide Mathurin to better cover the area. That way, Mathurin will be able to focus only on the photos and we hope the map will be better!

Despite this event, which mobilized a lot of our Crew’s grey matter, the afternoon was calm. For example, Léa carried on working on the 3D printer, to try and make it work, while Leo and I were playing chess!

SOL 15: Who runs Candor Chasma? Boys!

“He was learning a lot of new things. Some of them were things that he had already experienced, and weren’t really new, but that he had never perceived before.” – The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

We thought we had known Martian snow, but Mars caught us by surprise. Unlike yesterday, when only a few snowflakes were sprinkled on the red hills, the beautiful landscape in front of our windows was entirely white! But this weather was worrying to us. Indeed, a photogrammetry EVA was planned to Candor Chasma, located a bit far from the station. But, seeing the weather conditions, it was impossible for the EVA Crew to accomplish this mission: the landscapes looked too different under snow for photogrammetry to be effective, and the conditions could be dangerous. So, after coordinating together, we decided to wait for the afternoon to perform the EVA, hoping the snow would have melted under the sun. We weren’t sure if it would get better …

In the end, this development drastically impacted our schedule! We reorganized our morning, to perform in the morning activities originally planned in the afternoon. Marie tried to troubleshoot some software we use for the experiments, as well as Mathurin. Lise and Yves continued programming to collect the impedance meter’s data. During this time, Léa wrote some outreach articles for our Web site. With the cold being so persistent in the past two days, we were worried the battery used to power the atmospheric instruments had discharged too quickly. Leo, our Crew engineer, had a great idea: building an isolating box, in which we could put the batteries, so we wouldn’t have the same problem again! He spent the morning tinkering thanks to all the equipment from the RAM.

At one PM, the weather had improved, and the snow had melted. We were given the go ahead from Mission Support! So, Mathurin, Yves et Leo could go out on EVA with the drone, to take pictures of Candor Chasma, which will then enable them to generate 2D and 3D maps of the site for the photogrammetry experiment! Like last week, photogrammetry’s teams were made in the same way, so the girls stayed in the Hab today, while the boys were alone on Mars! In addition to that, the mid-mission resupply cargo had landed a few meters away from the Hab. So, at the beginning of their EVA, the team put the resupply in the main airlock. From the inside of the station, Lise, Marie, Léa and I re-pressurized the airlock and then removed the resupply for the next two weeks from it. It was pleasant and reassuring to see our kitchen cabinet full again! While we were putting everything away, the EVA Crew went to the atmospheric instrument’s site to deploy the instruments once again we brought back to the station during the previous EVA. The snow of the past two days proved to us we had made the right decision! After that, Mathurin, Leo and Yves went back to the rovers to go achieve their main EVA’s goal: Candor Chasma! Once they arrived there, they could launch the drone and take pictures to perform photogrammetry of the area. Lise was HabCom during their EVA. While she was following their actions, she Processed the water consumption data, collected over the past two weeks by carefully making note of the quantities and uses of water, every time someone opened the tap.. Therefore, in the last two week and considering every category of water usage, we used 5 liters of water per Crew member per day! We are proud to succeed at Conserving this precious resource, which made us realize how much water we use on Earth.

Coming back from Candor Chasma, everyone got back to work. Having an EVA during the afternoon was unusual, and completely changed the shape of our Sol!